John Searle - Arguments for Agnosticism?
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- Опубліковано 27 січ 2016
- Agnostics do not know whether or not God exists. Theists surmise they're reprobates. Atheists suppose they're cowards. Are there different kinds of agnostics?
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As I said in a previous John Searle video, John Searle kicks ass!!
@Benama Maybe he doesn't like asses. So he kicks them.
Knowledge vs Belief people! Believing is easy, anyone can have faith. The difficulty is justifying these beliefs as knowledge. Everytime someone have miraculous experience he/she can't explain, it's automatically assumed with belief of an interfering god.
"Very ambitious hypothesis" and "very little reason to suppose that it's true" claims, beliefs, asserting probabilities, or even preponderance all need scientific grounds. This is where the Agnostic separates from the Atheist. The Agnostic simply admits and accepts they are hopelessly ignorant, the theist and Atheist however both seem comfortable trying to magically justify some certainty, probability, or preponderance.
I don't know, and neither do you.
In that sense you must not even believe in scientific evidence because you could be a brain in a vat which hallucinates all the evidence, or you are deceived by a evil demon. "Very ambitious hypothesis" and "very little reason to suppose that it's true" claims, beliefs, asserting probabilities, and preponderance are all necessary to even speak of "scientific grounds". Why? Because no explanation can conclusively be proven by evidence. There is always a different explanation which explains the same evidence (Duhem-Quine problem).
But that does neither mean we shouldn't believe anything nor that we should believe everything to the same degree. Some explanations are more adequate, simple, internally consistent, conherent with other beliefs, and explanatory powerful than other explanations. Of course you could agnostically assume that Mickey Mouse might exist because maybe it doesn't exists and maybe it does. But that's ignoring the fact that explanations which predict the non-existence of Mickey Mouse are much simpler, coherent etc than other explanations which do predict its existence. Similar thing for the explanation that you are deceived by a demon to falsely believe all the scientific explanations. It's much simpler to assume that scientific explanations, which adhere to the criteria of simplicity and so on, are closer to the truth than the evil demon, or the brain in a vat, which all are ad-hoc hypothesis which do nothing to increase explanatory power.
The agnostic is still without theistic belief.
Semantics. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God. That’s all
Jon
Utter nonsense. Pure opinion.
And lost all credibility with the retard remark.
@@latenightlogic Lets put it this way, our planet is merely a speck in all reality and we're asking a broader question that defines existence. Do you think any living human being past or present can prove or disprove how this universe was created? Even in the furture I see this question not being ultimately answererable.
I think the claim that there is a "pink" rhinoceros is weaker because if the rhino were invisible how in the world would you know it was pink?
Good point, but what is that claim "weaker" than?
in an imperfect world, a perfect God is everybodys longing.
Well said!
Well said!
Instead of accepting the imperfect world and trying to make it more beautiful
Very interesting interview. Thanks.
As an agnostic, there is no "holy" book that should dictate to us how to live our lives
Man does NOT and NEVER will have dominion over microorganisms ... Seems the bronze age did NOT know about microorganisms....
We all admit we don't know what happens after we die. We can't know.
In the history of the world, no god has ever spoken a single syllable!
Jesus Rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees.
Somebody as intelligent as Jesus would have been an atheist.
All religions say they are the TRUE religion.
All religions are man made.
All religions are all lies.
Yes. All religions were formed by humans. There is some evidence that even early hominids had some form of religion, as evidenced by how they buried people. It wasn't until the dawn of civilization that religion really flourished. Even the Sumerians had a form of religion. Religion really took off with Judaism. It was then, for the most part, that the monotheism had its beginning. Religion diverged into different branches (different beliefs) based on geographical dispersion. The Jews had their god, the Hindus had there god, so forth and so on. Those religions branched out as well. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism. Even today new religions pop up. Christianity has diverged (ex. Protestants, Catholics). In the 20th century you have Mormonism and Scientology, to name just a couple. Religions will continue to be created, but most will have their roots in existing religions. Religion is like a virus. It mutates and adapts to the social expectations of the time.
The major religions of the world were brought into existence through LIES.
beyondallreligion.net/2012/03/20/religion-based-on-a-bedrock-of-lies/
Is the miraculous organization of this universe not enough evidence to believe in some creative Power? I’m not talking about an anthropomorphic God. But the Power that is the creator, the rules of creation and the matter of creation is a marvelous theory. Atheism didn’t arise in vacuum, it arises after religion already made its claim. So it can’t be a simple “negative”, it by its nature must be an affirmative claim that asserts the non-existence. So if theist argues that there is God, and the evidence of His existence is the fact that universe exists and has organization, then to be absolutely certain in this affirmative claim of non-existence atheist has to disprove the first claim. This cannot be done. That is why atheism is a form of belief not knowledge. In my opinion, Agnosticism is the rational way to deal with religion.
Creation, Creation, Creation...who or what created it all? We exist....therefore we were created!
I'm agnostic too , and I think that if there's is a God is more likely something that is the union of all the universe nature and of all the life forms (so someyhing similar to pantheism/pandeism or stoicisim idea of God ) , and far beyond the known universe itself , so that I could really define it trascendence (and so over my coscience) and like Kant said the most philosophical idea , because it's the union of every possibility of thought
Yes, that was total bullshit. ;-)
1:11 "Matter cannot exist without physical laws and constants first existing. Physical laws and constants cannot exist without mind / consciousness / intelligence first existing. Mind / consciousness / intelligence is Prime. Mind exists before Matter."
This man makes a lot sense...thumbs up.
Masterful!
Searle is just being honest. I am a deist and i believe deism and agnosticism are the most logical stances you can have, with agnosticism being even more logical. His philosophy of mind books are worth a read, I like Searle over others in philosophy of mind. By far the most rational
Lol. Really? So what you are saying, is ignorance is bliss.
I an agnostic. But Imliked his arguments here. I am not a huge fan of Searle but he is pretty good nonetheless. I like his way of soeaking, a very authoritative old style philosopher. It I said pleasing to listen.
Logical impossibility of proving a negative? I am always amazed at this statement. I learned how to prove there is no largest prime in 8th grade. A single counter example can easily prove a negative. What is the sign over Plato's academy supposed to have said?
I too have noticed this. I think when one takes all sciences (formal included) into the picture you see more clearly.
There is no default proposition, and there is no default position.
Suppose we have the proposition: God exists.
A lack of evidence or proof doesn't make the negation true.
Similarly, suppose we have the proposition: God doesn't exist.
A lack of evidence or proof doesn't make the negation true.
Its not that easy, the proposition is either true or false, but in this case its unanswered. A simple, I don't know, is all one can say.
Sure we make our minds up on many things where we may have reasons to believe them (faith).
Things one believes out of the blue would be defined as blind faith.
In this sense, Atheists and Theists both have faith. Both lacking full justification but providing their own reasons for choosing to believe what they do.
I must admit, I have faith that Thor doesn't exist, that there is no floating tea-pot or that Zeus doesn't exist.
I am reminded of the scenario of the Fermat Numbers, which were thought to only produce prime numbers. There was no proof, but there seemed to be a (weak) reason to believe it was true. You could argue that this would be faith, an implicit answer.
The first five Fermat Numbers were indeed prime.
No proof of this was found however, and a lack of this proof didn't make the logical position to reject the conjecture. It had to be shown or proven that the conjecture was wrong.
Indeed, this was done by counter-example due to Euler.
@Jon
Ahh, epistemology.
To be honest, you are almost talking about certainties here. We don't really prove or disprove anything in the sense you are talking, its all about probability really.
You are mixing up deductive and inductive science. In mathematics, you start with a set of definitions and unproved but plausible assumptions called postulates or axioms, and from there you can prove that there's no largest prime number. On a side note, Kurt Godel proved that in any sufficiently powerful set of axioms you can always produce valid statements that you can't prove or disprove. Then there are the intuitionists, led by Dutch mathematician Brouwer, who deny the validity of the reductio ad absurdum. They asked whether the sequence "123456789" occurs anywhere in the decimal representation of the number pi and claimed that you can't answer that question - if it doesn't occur anywhere, you will never be able to prove that by calculating digits.
But mathematics doesn't necessarily describe the world that we live in, so in order to prove or disprove God's existence, you have to use induction, not deduction. Then you get the example of the perfectly black, light-weight, non-metallic tea pot that orbits the sun somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn. In order to prove that it exists, all you have to do is scan that area and find it. But woe unto them who have to prove that it doesn't exist - they'll have to scan the area and prove that they scanned it entirely and didn't find it. But who knows what parts they overlooked?
@@thejiminator8816 probably is a cop out for im not sure, but pay me the money anyway.
Mind-independent entities are different from math
I don’t want to believe life exists after death. If life exists after death then I have the evidence I require, but while I live I refuse to accept on faith that there’s anything more than this exists and I’m perfectly content saying I don’t know.
I wonder why Lawrence always focuses on the God part and not the supernatural part? Does he have an episode on miracles? Now miracles are tied to holy books and the miracles of somebody else's holy book are tall stories, but the miracles from one's own Holy Book, they... are beyond words in their magnificence.
You can't prove a negative. Can you find a thesis unintelligible? Is an unintelligible thesis wrong? What is the difference between, 'There is no God', and 'God is an unintelligible thesis' ?
It is hard because we do not like to admit that we do not know. We are too proud to be humble.
Great explanation.
What's Searles problem with the cosmological argument? I feel the only way to truly rationally arrive at agnosticism, is if you methodologically banish metaphysical speculation wholesale. Otherwise you are going to have to make a decisive statement for or against a first cause(I think its more rational that there is a first cause, if you subscribe to the principle of sufficient reason)
Christ’s “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Was the beginning of Psalms 22 prophesy song describing his crucifixion. He said it to let them know the prophesy was fulfilled. Psalm 22 depicts the crucifixion down to the very rags of his clothing that the Roman dogs casted lots over. The Psalm was written 1000+ years before Christ and well before the crucifixion was ever an existing practice. The question wasn’t a doubt or cognitive dissonance between Christ and the Father. It was to let spectators know that the Psalm 22 prophesy was being fulfilled before their eyes. It was finished.
I don't know about the interviewer here or what his background is, but as a philosopher Searle ought to know that there is no necessary division at all between agnosticism and atheism. The former is an epistemological position which maintains that, as a matter of fact, the existence of god is either unknown or unknowable, while the latter is merely the absence of belief in a god. There is no, as the host asserts, "extreme" or "certain" atheism. Atheists rightly maintain that they cannot assert "there is no god," but only "as there is no evidence and no strong arguments in favor of god's existence, I don't believe in it." That's all. It isn't claiming to disprove god, but merely responding to what Searle admits is the overwhelming lack of evidence or good arguments in favor of that proposition.
All human beings are agnostics since, irrespective of what they believe or disbelieve, no one knows whether or not god exists. Some of us believe in a god, while others do not. And I agree with Searle not only that there is no evidence and are no good arguments, but that we should be suspicious of believing anything which we are desperate to believe. It's better to avoid irrational beliefs and wish-thinking, to the degree that we can, and try to face life as it is rather than how we believe it ought to be.
No one knows whether God exists or not but we have to either assume God exists or that He doesn't in order to live our lives. What is our purpose in life? How do we make moral decisions? If God is not central to those questions in our lives, then we have rejected God no matter what we call ourselves.
It is possible that I will win the lottery and so I buy a ticket as do many others. I know that the chances are exceedingly small but the perceived benefits are exceedingly great. Don't we all live our lives the same way? Mr. Searle says "... we would like to believe that the
people we most loved will continue to exist... ". Wouldn't that goal be even more valuable than the goal of winning the lottery?
The real question is not about the existence of God. The real question is whether, to us personally, God is worth seeking. Mr. Searle implies Christians believe because they want to believe and strongly implies that his intellectual honesty compels him to be skeptical. But every one of the militant atheists has at one time or another expressed their dislike of the idea of God running their lives. So just as Mr. Searly questions my intellectual honesty, I challenge his.
Makes sense
Mr.Searely, what experience could you possibly have that would convince you that nature is unnatural?
I LOVE this video, but I disagree with the first point made. I think you CAN prove a universal negative
Refreshing to hear the word "Mohammedism" used
This is what I want to get clear. Does God equals the supernatural equals miracles? Is there any way out of that? Is far as I'm concerned, there isn't.
The existence of a deity is not just an 'ambitious hypothesis', it's an unnecessary one. Maybe there are invisible blue cats living under my bed, but do i really need to be agnostic about that?
It would help if they got their terms correct.
He's a smart man to be sure, but the fact that he mentions Darwinism as a stumbling block to theism (as if the biological intelligent design argument was the only relevant argument for the existence of God) suggests to me that he probably hasn't studied the arguments for God's existence in depth. And neither did Bertrand Russell, by the way.
At the very end. Or they believe for psychological reasons.
He does make sense if he's saying that one cannot prove that some hypothetical god does not exist. But, it also seems quite clear that the god of the bible cannot exist given the absence of justice, all the evil, misery and cruelty that clearly exists in our world.
Methodological suspicion.
The Agnostic Humanist
"He is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being or beings but he has to rely on himself and his own power". I like this and I agree with it because when you rely on yourself and your own power you are relying on your nature. and your nature is exactly the same nature as Elohim. What I'm proposing is that when you depend on yourself and rely on yourself you're relying on your nature which is the nature of Elohim. What I'm proposing is that the Elohim nature is the source of our nature. The nature of Elohim is Intelligent Communication, touch, sentient friendship. That's how we have Intelligent Communication, touch, and sentient friendship in our lives. We take after the Elohim.
Our Real Originators are light beings. they're made of LifeLight (shaped like humans) and they respect each other. and stand together in a circle. and hear one another non-verbally. they understand each other. they're totally in unity. These are Divine beings and they are exactly perfectly equal to eachother. and when they placed their hands on each other's backs to do a circular hug. a bubble of light came out of them. And this light was the universe with all the stars moving and everything in the universe takes after the nature of Elohim which is orderly, purposeful friendship. You can discover in science that magnetism is what keeps the stars from colliding and keep the perfect orderliness Among the Stars so that there's no chaos and life can bloom. but the point is why there is no orderliness is because he came from these beings. only what is in the nature of these beings is what we see expressed as our universe.
So there is not enough evidence to disprove Santa Claus?
My position; God, per se, is not a matter of evidence. God is first off a matter of clarity of concept, and then how that concept is conciliant or contradictory to a concept of reality. Now if one is approaching the subject from the consideration of miracles, then evidence would come into play.
we are designing artificial intelligence which is designed to slowly evolve. I am wondering if with time chatgpt will consider us as it's creator?
Why would it? Were you created by the ape-like creatures that you evolved from? Were they created by the tiny mammals that survived the asteroid impact? Life evolves. Evolution is not a linear process. This time around it will simply make a technological step. Having said that, go and "talk" to chatGPT. You will find that it's a lot of things, but it's not intelligent. It's more like a broken record collection. There are a lot of different records in there, but as soon as you ask for the specific music on one of them, it will keep repeating that same music over and over, again. It can't learn, no matter how hard you try to teach it. That's not intelligence, at least not yet.
@@lepidoptera9337 technically i was created by the ape-like creatures and so has the AI and so have YOU. Darwin's evolution theory is no longer relavant either as it turned out.
Supposed when you grow older - become wiser... This guy proves contrary 😂😂😂
Very little reason to suppose a creator is true .........apart from that is the creation maybe
Verily Verily I say unto you whosoever Believeth on Me hath Everlasting Life John 6:47
And what or how was the set up framework for those 'evolutionary permutations' done? They just didn't happen, just because they happened.
it will only take a half a second to know that God exist...
I'm kinda stunned at how poor some of the arguments are, here.
That kind of claim warrants some defense, and you give none.
4:14 The Cosmological Constant is tuned to a level of 1/10^120. By definition, "a statistical impossibility is a probability that is so low as to not be worthy of mentioning. Sometimes it is quoted as 1/10^50 although the cutoff is inherently arbitrary. Although not truly impossible the probability is low enough so as to not bear mention in a rational, reasonable argument." Therefore, in the fine-tuning argument, it would be more rational and reasonable to conclude that the multi-verse is not the correct answer. On the other hand, it has been scientifically proven numerous times that Consciousness does indeed collapse the wave function to cause information waves of probability to become particle/matter with 1/1 probability. A rational and reasonable person could therefore conclude that the answer is consciousness.
Lol did he say "Mohamedism"? How old is he?
Why do all these smart men use the fact that there is suffering in the world as proof that there is no God? Very strange.
Because it disproves a so called loving and compassionate God, work it out!
Well it's likely a reference to theism not deism,;theism is a massive paradox, why would an all, all knowing ,all powerful and all loving god allow needless suffering to exist ? Especially if those who suffer are helpless and innocent? However the idea than an non-loving god or a oblivious or indifferent god wouldn't apply here but to be fair his argument is varied and he talks about more than one religion.
I'm an agnostic u idiot, if anything if there is a god, he must be evil and vindictive, u know nothing about my religious upbringing, views or experiences and as for delusional, I'm far from it more than you'll ever know pal, so instead of being a judgemental arrogant prick, maybe next time u should think before u attack
@GREG GMW Why would he be called loving and compassionate if you can just say "oh but to god love and compassion is what we call evil, but he plays by different rules". Like why make it so confusing? If I were to torture you, but told you I was actually loving and compassionate, would you believe me?
It's word salad. We all know what love and compassion is... If love and compassion are famine, disease, and pain... Words just have no meaning.
Why do so many idiots believe in a loving God when life is suffering??
Uh this is so annoying. Agnostic deals with knowledge, atheism deals with belief. If you don't believe in God/gods then you are an atheist by definition. If you say you don't know if there is a God/gods then you're agnostic. However, these two things are not mutually exclusive. A theist can be agnostic, and an atheist can be as well.
@Man From Andromeda lol no. First of all "lack of knowledge" is the same thing as no knowledge, so that is a dumb thing to argue.
Second, if you don't know then the default position is to not believe until you've been shown sufficient evidence, IE agnostic atheist which does in fact make sense, and is in fact logically consistent.
An Atheist can most definitely say they don't believe, but also say they don't know. For example if a guy tells you he can do a double backflip but doesn't show you, you can say you don't believe him, but still leave it open for him to prove it. You wouldn't straight out say he can't do it. That isn't an in the middle position at all.
Now as for agnostic theists, yeah it isn't a logically consistent position to hold, however they could be saying they are agnostic to the description/definition of god.
But you missed my entire point in the first place. I was saying that if you don't believe, then you are in fact an Atheist. If I ask you whether you believe in god/gods or not and you answer agnostic, that's a non answer. I didn't ask if you knew, I asked if you believed.
@Man From Andromeda I'm not reading all of that.
If you have no knowledge, do you not lack knowledge? Again, stupid thing to argue.
Belief: an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
Disbelief: inability (ignorance) or refusal to accept that something is true or real.
These are not choices. The only way to come to a belief is to become convinced that it is true, if you are not convinced that it is true than you do not believe it by default lol yes ignorance is a part of that position. But there is a difference between someone who believes with/because of ignorance, then someone who doesn't believe and are aware of their ignorance. What is so hard to understand there?
"I do not disbelieve in things I am unaware of; I am ignorant of things I am unaware of. Is what I have just said true? In order to disbelieve, I would have to have some sort of knowledge of the thing. If I possess no knowledge of the thing, how can I be at a default of disbelief? I cannot."
Are you serious right now? If you have no knowledge of something then you can't logically believe it. An agnostic Atheist is someone who does not believe in any gods, but also understands that they couldn't possibly know if there is some sort of a god out there. You can disbelieve in specific definitions of gods, but still be ignorant to definitions you don't know about, or don't exist yet.
It's as if you haven't even tried to think about this stuff, your just randomly arguing against points you clearly don't even understand.
@Man From Andromeda Yeah I completely disagree with your definitions, and conclusion. You can in fact be in the neutral position {Agnostic} but still not believe. If you are in a neutral position then you haven't been convinced right? so again, the default position from there is non belief.
Ok then, how consciousness emerges if, as you say, the evolution process is enough to disvalue any relevance to the arguments of God (cosmological, ontological, teleological, eschatological...). I think there are deep problematic axioms in thinking that agnosticism is a rational position only because it is impossible to prove the negation. This is insubstantial positivist philosophy as can be expected from nowadays trends of analytic philosophy.
Ugh this guy reminded me way more of Dawkins than Oppy. I was hoping fit more substance from him, not New Atheist slogans.
For God so loved the world that He Gave His Only Begotten Son so that whosoever Believeth on Him shall not perish but have Everlasting Life John 3:16
When are you going to interview William Lane Craig?
WLC is a study in logic fallacies who has nothing important to say in an intelligent conversation.
Bob S
Also... he’s been published in the world’s most prestigious philosophy journals in the world, and he has multiple books with respected presses.
@@bobs182 Define logical fallacies and give a specific example in either on of WLC books or videos where he commits the supposed "logical fallacy".
@@1974jrod Give me your favorite WLC argument. Here is a list of logical fallacies to get you started learning about fallacies. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
@@bobs182 We could start with the Kalama Cosmological argument for starters.
The only evidence we have of God's existence is a feeling which can also be argued as knowing the effects of karma is is true and believes in a higher power
Mr. Searle objection show a lack of familiarity with Christian Theology.
It's not that the Father and the Son are identical, and if you haven't taken
the time to understand the trinity you haven't truly considered Christianity.
it does not matter, all religions and gods were created by men
The word God is the problem. We should iliminate it from our vocabulary.
Well that's your opinion.
@@edmundburke8490 not exactly
@@noelkinz what word, would you like to replace for God then? Just curious. Thanks.
@@edmundburke8490 none
Human is the only creator that thinks other creators cannot exist.
Thank You All Powerful Lord God Jesus Christ for Shedding Every Last Drop of Your Perfect Redeeming Innocent Blood and Dying on The Cross ✝️ To Pay for All my Sins! Thank You for Being Buried! Thank You Jesus for COMING BACK ALIVE 3 Days After Your Death because You Are The Son of God and God At The Same Time!!! God Works in Mysterious Ways The REAL GOD Is The ONE from The King James Bible HE Is ONE GOD with 3 Different Parts God The Father God The Son Jesus Christ and God The Holy Spirit Not 3 Different Gods But The ONE The Only True Living GOD Most High Revealed to us in 3 Ways Like an egg has a shell a white and a yellow 3in1 Water is H2O liquid steam and solid ice 3in1 GOD Also Is 3in1 I LOVE You GOD Above All Else Always!!!❤❤❤Amen
The scale isn't between "absolute certain atheism" and "very balanced agnosticism". Atheist don't have to be certain to not have a belief in god. For many not believing is the default position. Agnosticism isn't well balanced, it's weak kneed and fearful of offending anyone. Making a decision doesn't mean you can't change your mind later in light of new evidence. Failing to make a decision after so much has been argued on the subject is shaky, not balanced.
Some people think that admitting that can't be certain is better than fully believing in an uncertainy.
@@ruurddejong1939 What does it mean to fully believe in an uncertainty? Does it mean that you believe it is uncertain or you believe something is certain that is not?
1:21 "The fact that DNA / genes (biological coded information) exists at all shows that an 'Intelligence' is involved in the initial introduction and subsequent propagation of living systems. 3:48 Un-directed random natural processes have never been scientifically demonstrated or proven to be capable of producing functional information as that required for biological systems, even at the most primitive levels of biological life."
This man is trying to walk two opposite roads at the same time. He admits he cannot prove his universal negative, and then asserts the position directly opposite of that one he says "almost certainly cannot be proven either." Simultaneously claiming the position of ignorance which ultimately is a violation of the law of excluded middle. Then he condems presupposing God, when the only other position left is to presuppose no God, which he already admitted he cannot do. Lol. Confused? So is he. He has left himself in worse than limbo.
i get the impression that people like him don't want the existence of God to be true. he gives the example that when he gets to the pearly gates he will ask why you didn't make yourself evident. God can simply say, there was but you chose to believe in a delusion. the arguments for the existence of God are actually very strong but he says they are not. they know that if God exists, the implications in their lives will be drastic.
"I'm suspicious of believing something which we desperately want to believe."
I don't think its like that for most people. I think its apparent that most people who do not believe in God do not really want him to exist and they hope that he doesn't.
Last thing I wanted to do is believe in God, but as the evidence poured in through prophecy, history, and now the incredible increase in our understanding of the complex engineering of the physical world, I am compelled to do so. What lack of evidence is Searle talking about? Who decided that the bonding habits of the elements would be such as to facilitate life? When does an intelligent person observe a super intelligently engineered system and then dismiss the intellect behind it?
+SeanMauer Do you really not see the circular and tautological nature of what you're saying? Of course no one "decided" that the universe should exist in such a way as to facilitate life, but there would be no life here if it didn't exist in that way. You're simply projecting your conclusions onto particular facts about the natural world, but they simply don't support your thesis. The late author Douglas Adams used the example of a puddle that had suddenly gained consciousness. The puddle looks around at the hole it's in and says to itself, "Wow, look at this! This hole is just right for me. In fact, it is perfectly the right size for me to exist in it. Someone must've made this hole with me in mind. Lucky me!" Now, you see the silliness here, I hope. It's just a tautology.
As for this being a "super intelligently engineered system," I would suggest you aren't too familiar with actual intelligent engineering. The natural world, from the cosmological level to the most infinitesimal biological systems, is riddled with waste and destruction on an unimaginable scale. I have to conclude, frankly, that you don't really know anything about science but have merely read and are parroting here nonsense from Christian apologists. There is nothing about the natural world which is suggestive of highly intelligent design. Nothing.
Love & Division perhaps autocorrect got some of your words wrong here.... you seem to have made the exact opposite case regarding what the evidence does and doesn’t show. Maybe go back and edit!
Nothing ambitious about it. and lots of evidence to support it.
Russell wasn't looking hard enough and didn't think it through.
Agnosticism is stopping before you've thought it through.
Think ...
1) The Universe had a beginning
2) The Universe had a cause
3) What we observe is organized: various forms of matter and energy behave consistently under given sets of conditions and the observable constants that govern those conditions are very finely tuned.
4) Much of what we observe is organized in highly complex ways into highly functional substances, objects and even entities , to the extent that we exist - capable of observing and even understanding much of the complexity we observe.
5) This finely tuned, highly functional, organized universe points to a Design.
6) Design can only be accomplished with intent, foresight, and the planned use of information.
7) Intent, foresight, planning, information usage are all activities of a mind - a Designer and Creator.
This doesn't necessarily mean the God of the Bible. The universe could have originated from any of the thousands of creation stories in the thousands of religions that have been created by humankind (both still with us today and long forgotten). It could've been some super-intelligence for whom we were just a science project for some hyper-advanced science funfair, and then thrown away and forgotten. The point is, we don't know even a sliver of info to even begin to be certain, existence has vastness and complexity beyond our total comprehension, and we're just a gaggle of dumbasses on a tiny floating rock. That's the point of Agnosticism.
God's characters will argue until they die in this world. Only God's chosen servants called prophets, saints and believers get to know God and listen to His voice. This is how we learn how He created everything. If you listen carefully, He will teach you the various programs within His program called Eternal Life that taught His characters how to build things with their human hands. The program called the Beast is a very interesting program that theists and atheists have no knowledge about. But if they listen, they can learn how the Beast taught them how to build the computer technology we have today.
Well the problem Brad is that a lot of us did not receive that computer chip that was implanted in some brains by the government that helps some people hear all those little voices like the beast who I'm sure have much to tell us about computer design & implementation,so a lot of us, sadly ,will never know of such things but please don't hold back when the voices move you
Time is the ENEMY of evolutionary permutations - do the math Johnny :D
did he just mention Mohammedanism? hahahaha....
OMG! Such an ignorance for a philosopher of this scale! He must check the latest scientific research done by physicists and molecular biologists 😱 which made Darwinian “Origin of Species” so doubtful. He just flies around in shallow waters of popular psychology. I am just amazed how such forever person can be so intelligent in certain issues.
Consciousness created matter ,you can not create matter to create consciousness ..
your so right about religion ,, its all created by man to control man..each of the main religions is far from perfect ..People are so blind to the truth as most want and think they need to believe in religion ,,try believing in yourself and you will find the source of creation is within .
Evolution??? Evolution never accounted for the origins of the information needed to create life. Come on John you can do better than that.
Physics and chemistry describe the specificity of action(information) of material. Evolution is dependent upon these forces of nature while itself is entirely passive. We accept our world as it is and describe it. Why blindly accept an invisible being as the source of anything when it is much simpler to accept the world as it exists? If God can just exist then the world can just exist.
"..Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind." Job 12:9-10 (NIV)
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16 (NASB)
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV)
Near death experiences show us there is an afterlife .. You can watch a video with John Burke here: ua-cam.com/video/Dq3xirn7te8/v-deo.html
You can watch the Alpha film series here: ua-cam.com/video/Kf1TOTRCT1g/v-deo.html
You can hear the gospel here: www.peacewithgod.net
There is no god.
Jgeorge...Maybe or maybe not. As Searle states, we can’t prove a negative. If God does exist, its existence and essence is far beyond our intellectual capacity to understand it.
If you're content with stopping before you've thought it through, that's fine: you have God-given free will.
Have a nice life.
But don't try telling me there's not enough evidence or arguments to figure it out!
100% PERCENT PROOF OF A CREATOR
In layman's terms This Energy/Time(creator) it HAS the ONLY ability to save its OWN creation which is energy/time meaning us humans who are made up of that energy/time.
So that means no other god or gods under the heaven(skies) can save the spirit accept The Holy Spirit.
Im trying to make it easy enough for you to understand ...You know when they say Gods glory is every where, well it is because Energy and Time are all around us.
But since Satan is on earth he also is a form of (time/energy) runs his government(energy/time) here on earth...thats why we are in a fallen world (death and destruction famine and disease depression, ...its because of this evil energy/time(Satan) is over the whole world.
Man is a broken man because of this evil energy/time(satan)
But The Holy Spirit is the creator of evil and he has the ability to destroy His creation evil energy/time satan.
satan is no match for God the ultimate authority.
That Energy/Time came down as man JESUS but they
crucified Him and His Energy/Time(spirit) went back into Heaven. And NOW that Energy/Time is coming back with vengeance against the evil energy(satan) and his followers ....God is King you dig and He is coming back for revenge ....repent my friends!
where is the verifiable 100% proof of a creator?
So what if in reply to Russell's objection to God, God says "No evidence? I programed it inside of you and made it obvious."
Here, John literally said he's suspicious of believing in something people want to believe.
An amazing level of self delusion.
God? Show me the evidence! Next question.
Then it would no longer be called faith now would it?
Eminent philosopher of mind trying to dabble in philosophy of religion... not a good attempt. Same with daniel dennet, just stick to what you know guys
"Stick to what you know"
Well yes, that's what they're doing when they talk about religion.
he's area of expertise is mind, not religion
JohnFisherChoir
Nonetheless, he's sticking to what he knows, in the sense that he can't know whether or not there's a God and he isn't going further than stating that fact. - Everyone has *an* interpretation of the topic.
Furthermore, he's clearly given it some thought, and that's already quite a lot more than is demanded of those who make the positive claim that there *is* a God.
I suppose, what I'm trying to say with this latter point is: Would you have the same complaint - that Searle should "Stick to what he knows" - if he had asserted there *was* a God?
To give you a sense of the direction of my questioning - What I'm presuming is that you're a Christian who is more upset with his arguments against the idea of a God, rather than a rigorous academic who is simply stating that everyone keep their statements to very specific disciplines within which they've either published work or received a degree.
You're presumption is wrong I'm not a theist, it wouldn't have made a difference if he said God exists or does not exist, it's that he said his only reason for not being an atheist is that' you can't prove a universal negative', which is obviously false, even to the non-philosopher, so he should know better than that given his influence in philosophy of mind. He can have any views that he likes outside of philosophy of mind, but they aren't his specialty and he doesn't show much more familiarity with philosophy of religion than do non-philosophers and laymen in the field like richard dawkins or christopher hitchens. For a significantly more rigorous defense of agnosticism see Graham Oppy, and for atheism: J L mackie, william rowe, Quentin Smith. And to dismiss the theistic arguments as he does as if they were nothing is ridiculous. Many theistic arguments in contemporary philosophy of religion are taken very seriously by non-theist philosophers
Indeed, I can empathize with another example
Pinker trying to dabble in futures studies/human security and geopolitics,
when area of focus was... clinical psychology and longitudinal studies?
I will go to my plumber or mechanic when my blood vessel have problem, its all the same eh?
(just as the OP have to make explicit he is not of belief,
I too have to state a bias - on many other subject, I enjoy seeing Pinker's perspective,
pinker have a lot of emulatable trait eh?
it is only on these area I have to put concrit first eh?)
'toynbee-huntington thesis', 'geopol realism', "stochastic 'wildcard' ala Zubrin, what are those?
don't ya know, imposing "End of History" cosmopolitanism,
has meant everyone hold hands with kumbaya and there is a decline of violence, QED.
resource abundance, rate of innovation, and supranational relations aren't the driving factors facilitating
the peace period... it's just a fundamental shift in the human condition, which is a permanent transformation that can never change back or revert etc...
it is clear what side of the malthusian v cornucopian debate
pinkerites or transhumanists are on eh?
J Searle most identify self as
'ignostic' or 'theological non-cognitivist',
(see the Searle room thought experiment, and searle's musings on the Boltzmann brain eh)
though has entertained some definition or claim in some past,
have found the gap between what is claimed and what is observable wanting.
it is the context Searle elucidate which is insightful,
showing these standpoints as distinct
from the false dichotomy of "TAP V PAP" others would impose eh?
at least J Searle or D Dennett are multidisciplinary,
and have some experience in the other fields they reflect on eh?
J Searle or D Dennett also don't make huge winded books
on some assertion they tenuously sorta prove...
J Searle et D Dennett do consider different definitions or claims which they could find plausible,
across many different kind of belief or thinking,
moreoften being a type of corporeal being,
or a metanarrative construct analogous to a nationstate, or mass delusion, or fictional character.
bonne chance a vous mon librepenseur!
Searle is utterly ignorant about philosophy of religion and Christian apologetics. Craig would crush him in a debate.
What makes you say Searle is "utterly ignorant about philosophy of religion"? That seems to be a baseless accusation.
And Craig is not even a footnote next to John Searle.
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